


an ode to the worst of my days

by emAvox



Category: Lifeline (Video Game 2015)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Lifeline is a trans woman named Riley, additionally: i have no fckin idea where this is in canon since Whiteout 2 just started existing, and she will fuck you up, blue is a hufflepuff because he is a particularly good finder, idk friends if you read this just REALLY play up those ALT conspiracy theories, in which Adams is a badass and so is the lifeline, she is very very ginger
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-18
Updated: 2017-05-18
Packaged: 2018-11-02 02:29:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10935093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emAvox/pseuds/emAvox
Summary: "They approach under the cover of night… which is a lot more difficult than it sounds. As much as Adams wishes he was in a cool spy movie, he’s pretty sure that those heroes don’t have to dump their (stolen) car and hoof it to the place that they plan on breaking into. "In which Riley wields an extinguisher, Blue has a good nose, and Adams needs a haircut (unless he wants to not look like his clones).(ABANDONED)





	1. the sky's been looking so gray

**Author's Note:**

> i started writing this like 6 months ago and then forgot about it ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> title is from Joey Bada$$'s Escape 120

Blue starts to growl and Adams jolts awake. It’s dark now, the park he had fallen asleep in silent and deserted. Adams shifts on the bench and sits up.

“Blue? What’s --”

Blue falls silent at Adams’ voice, but his hackles are raised, his lips pulled back in a snarl. Adams listens to the darkness surrounding him, ears straining to hear what has his canine companion on high alert.

There. The sound of a struggle.

Adams stands quickly and quietly and begins moving toward the sound. Blue moves with him, a shadow but for his white fur. The lamppost nearest them flickers but remains lit; Adams edges around the circle of light. He hears a man swear, a muffled yell, and he picks up the pace. As he turns a corner, the greenery opens up to a wide field where an armored van has pulled in, the tail lights glowing in the dark. Two men stand at the open rear doors, looming over someone else, someone smaller. The man on the right makes a move to grab the shadowed figure, and they make a break from the circle of the men’s arms. One of them grabs the person’s hair, and their call of alarm is cut off abruptly as the other man hauls back his arm and slugs them solidly in the face. Hair released, they drop to the ground, silent.

“Hey!” Adams yells, breaking into a sprint. Blue starts howling, keeping pace, and the men look in their direction. From a distance, Adams thinks that he sees a familiar logo on the breast of their uniforms. The men, alarmed, grab their bounty and toss them into the back of the truck. They hit the metal floor with a thud and do not move. Adams runs as fast as he can, lungs burning, closing the distance between them. One man hops into the back and slams the doors shut behind him. The other gets in the driver’s seat and floors it; their wheels skid in the mud as they race away, leaving a trail in the grass. Then, they’re gone.

Blue stops when Adams does, whining and turning in agitated circles. Adams braces his hands on his knees, stooped over, chest heaving. He kicks himself for not reacting faster, not listening to Blue. He looks in the direction the truck disappeared in despondently. Another person, gone.

 

 

 

Adams has a little bit of money left over still from selling the hovercar to a chop shop in Fairbanks. He isn’t sure where exactly he’s going and he doesn’t really mind either way, as long as it’s away from ALT. It seems, however, that ALT is intent on being wherever he is, too. He doesn’t think that he’s being followed (his Lifeline always told him that he was paranoid-- they were right), but those trucks and guards always seem to be with him, every step of the way, taking people.

 

 

He’s clipping a new leash to Blue’s new collar (damn cops and their leash laws) in front of a shopfront, watching the TVs on display idly for news. A news bulletin: a rash of disappearances. The news channel shows pictures of those missing and Adams stops briefly, staring at the screen. They’re all young, maybe 30 or under, red hair, freckles. All from Alaska, following the path that Adams has been blazing. Adams looks away from the wall of screens, tightening Blue’s collar.

 

 

It happens again and again and again. In parks and alleys, side streets and open areas. Every time, Adams tries to save the people who are being abducted. Every time he fails. This failure is his only other companion next to Blue; it becomes a familiar weight on his shoulders. Is this self-flagellation an attempt at penance? Is he trying to make up for the lives he’s taken?

Then one night, months later, the routine changes. He finds the truck first.

He’s slouching down a street in Dawson City, dying for some takeout and a beer. Blue tugs on his leash and Adams is instinctively alert, ducking around the corner of a dime store and peering back down the street he’s left. A truck moves along the street slowly, quietly, its lights off. The street lights are dim but they reflect dully off the sides of the vehicle. The car continues past him, the passengers missing the man and dog in the darkness, and is parked just down the street.

How convenient.

Adams follows the alley he’s in around the shuttered building next to the dime shop, holding himself still behind a dumpster as he listens to the men talk. He sets Blue’s leash down on the asphalt, motions for him to stay, pulls out his knife. Waits. Their voices are faint and his ears strain to make out their words. He sticks his tongue in the gap where his missing tooth used to be, a nervous habit.

“-- many this month?” one of the guards whispers as they exit the truck. They close their doors softly. Two of them, Adams thinks. He can take two.

“Only--,” another voice, softer than the first, harder to make out. “--too obvious. They know where Adams--”

He stiffens, the grip on his knife tightening and bordering on the edge of painful. They are following him. He hears footsteps coming toward him, probably the guard checking the alley for bystanders or people, like himself, prone to idiotic bouts of heroism. The footsteps come closer, closer, there. The guard passes the dumpster and sees Blue, jolts back, but Adams grabs him by the throat before he can speak and slams him into the side of the shop.

“You make any noise,” he hisses, completely unlike himself. He has become a very accomplished actor, thank you very much. “You die.”

The guard is struggling but Adams hefts his knife and places it under his right eye, close enough to press a line into his eyelid. The man goes still.

“You’ll lose this eye if you call for help, got it?” he asks, looming over him. He mouths yes, his lips trembling. Adams loosens his grip on the guard’s throat and he gasps, a thin sound as he pulls in air. “Why are you taking those people?”

He’s crying now, hands grasping at Adams’ wrist in a plea, trying to evoke sympathy. “I’m just doing my job,” he wheezes. “I’m just--”

Adams squeezes his throat again, a threat. “Why?”

Tears are streaming down his face. He’s babbling. “They’re looking for someone, I don’t know, something about an experiment in Alaska, I don’t know anything about it, I swear, please don’t kill me--”

Adams goes cold. He thinks of Alaska, his only friend, in danger. “I know who you’re with.” he chokes out. “Tell me where you took them. Now.”

“Prospect Creek! There’s a compound, please--”

He tightens his grips, feels the pulse jackrabbiting as he chokes the guard out. His hands lose their strength and his pupils shrink to pinpoints. When his arms fall, Adams lowers him to the ground. He drops into a crouch and starts searching the man’s pockets. He finds an ID card, a set of car keys, and a flashlight. He takes them all.

Blue’s tail thumps once as Adams leans near him. The man smiles briefly and scratches Blue on his chest, his favorite spot. “Good boy, Blue.” he whispers. He leans around the dumpster and peers toward the truck. The idiots left it unattended; wouldn’t you know it, but he happens to have a set of car keys.

 

 

It takes the boys a few days to get back to Fairbanks, where they stop for supplies; Adams can’t help but think that he’s running right back into whatever the hell it was he ran away from in the first place. He thinks of Blue being hurt, thinks of himself dying, thinks of his friend in danger. While he and Blue chow down on drive-through gourmet, he tries to think of a plan. He sighs- he has no idea what he’s in for. He tries to channel his inner Lifeline, tries to think about what they would have advised him to do. He slows down and searches the whole truck over, finding a police baton tucked behind one of the seats.

“I guess this is about as good as it’s going to get, Blue.” Adams says, mostly to himself. Blue is passed out in post-food contentment and ignores him in favor of sleep. Typical dog. He snorts to himself and murmurs, “Alright then.” He puts the car in gear and off they go.

 

 

They approach under the cover of night… which is a lot more difficult than it sounds. As much as Adams wishes he was in a cool spy movie, he’s pretty sure that those heroes don’t have to dump their (stolen) car and hoof it to the place that they plan on breaking into. Blue’s white fur normally glows in the dark, but he blends in fairly well against the piles of snow. They go slowly, hiding in the shadows as best they can, but the place seems deserted. When they reach the door, Adams pulls out the guard’s ID card and swipes it. The lock changes color, red to green. There’s a soft noise as the door unlocks; they enter.

It’s dark inside, lit only by emergency signs and a lamp on the front desk. The building seems quiet other than the bray of an alarm, but Adams knows that it’s not empty. Not safe. There are no windows anywhere, and it reminds Adams of a prison. He and Blue creep through the lobby over to the desk, and he sticks his tongue in the gap in his teeth. As they move toward the desk (Very nice. Teakwood?), Blue drops even lower to the ground. Adams sees feet sticking out from behind the high-backed chair. He only looks briefly, but he can tell that the woman is dead. A trail of blood suggests that she crawled here, maybe looking for safety. The fact that half of her face is smashed in suggests that she did not find it.

They start to move away, toward the long hallway past the desk; Adams jumps at a crackle of static. He looks back at the fallen guard and sees a radio on the floor next to her limp hand, covered in blood. The battery light blinks softly in the dark. Adams does not feel like he’s in a horror movie at all. Adams sneaks back over and snatches up the radio, expecting the dead woman to come alive and grab him at any moment. He takes a moment to fiddle with the volume before clipping it to the waistband of his pants. He motions to Blue and they move on.

The wailing alarm becomes background noise as the hallway stretches on. There’s blood on the floor and broken pieces of what used to be a planter. Blue’s ears twitch and he abruptly runs down the hall, nails scrabbling on the linoleum. Adams hisses “Blue!” but the husky ignores him, halting pointedly at a cracked door. Adams glares at Blue when he gets close and listens at the door. Under the alarm, he hears someone wheezing in the next room. There’s blood on the door handle. The walkie crackles loudly (“24 is in Zone Twelve, requesting backup--”) and someone yells around the bend. Adams makes an impulse decision and shoves the door open, shooing Blue in and shutting them in the dark.


	2. trapped inside this hell, hell hole

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Adams is bad at small talk, Blue is very quiet and mostly a background character, and Riley has trust issues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let's all just imagine that Whiteout and the Green Series exist within the same universe, same timeline, same Lifeline, etc. etc.

The wheezing he heard outside turns into ragged gasps; someone moves in the darkness in a panic as Adams searches the wall for a lightswitch. Finding nothing, he pulls out the flashlight he stole from the guard in Dawson City and flicks it on. Blue sits off to the side as the small bathroom is lit harshly. A startled face stares at him from the corner of the room, pale and covered in freckles. She’s breathing quickly and she struggles to get farther away from Adams, hand slipping in the pool of blood under her.

 

Adams reaches out a hand and says, “Hey,  _ hey _ . It’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you. Let me help you, please.”

 

Her pupils are flat and her breathing quickens, whistling through her teeth. She coughs, blood on her lips. “ _ Get away from me _ ,” she says harshly. There are voices in the hallway, and Adams looks over his shoulder at the door. He covers up the flashlight, plunging the room into darkness once more. He uncovers the lights when footsteps pass again, focusing on the woman in the room with him.

 

What should he do? Adams feels like he’s been spoiled up to this point, having his Lifeline with him to act as a soundboard when he faced tough decisions. He has to figure this out himself. He needs to be the lifeline now.

 

“Please,” he tries again. “What’s your name? I can help you.”

 

He’s lying. She looks like a doll made of wax, pale and still and lifeless. There’s no help for her now. The woman shivers and makes a face like she’s trying to cry, trying to force one last human emotion out before she dies. She inhales raggedly and Blue whines. There is blood in her mouth, in her hair, everywhere. It looks to Adams like someone was using their hands to try and claw out her insides, and partially succeeded.

 

“Sub- Subject 31-23-FN.” She’s responding mechanically, as if this response has been drilled into her. Adams feels a sense of revulsion- more numbers, fewer names, and isn’t that just like ALT? “There was.... I don’t know why-”

 

Adams hears a death rattle in her throat and she’s dead, just like that. Her body lay tucked in the corner of the room, propped up like a forgotten doll. She looks fake, hollow. Adams feels more useless than he has in the entirety of his short life. If he can’t save strangers, how is he supposed to--?

 

Adams shakes it off, puts in on the backburner for later. The woman was wearing a hospital gown that now seemed to be little more than fabric clinging to her wounds. If Adams looks closely, he can see-  _ oh, Jesus Christ, is that a kidney?! _

 

He gags and turns away, the smell of the blood cloying. He listens at the door briefly and then darts out of the room, Blue scrambling to follow. Back in the hallway, he realizes that the sound of the alarm has turned off, though the flashing lights remain. The building around him seems excessively still, dangerous. Even his breathing seems loud.

 

“We have to be quiet, Blue.” He all but breathes this to his friend, terrified of being found and… what? Experimented on again? He thinks he knows why ALT was picking up all of those people, people like the woman who died in the bathroom, but what were the experiments for? Why were they subjects? He shuffles toward the bend in the hallway.

 

Adams turns the corner and--  _ whuffff _ . A fist nails him squarely in the gut. Blue snarls as Adams hunches over, but before he can counterattack there’s a resounding  _ clang _ and the guard drops to the floor. Adams looks up in a panic and sees a figure standing over him with a fire extinguisher held aloft. Blue jumps in front of Adams, protecting him, and Adams stands slowly with a hand on his aching stomach. He sees short red hair, freckles, an ALT jumpsuit.

 

“Call off your dog,” the figure pants. “Or I swear to God I’ll smash his fucking head in.”

 

“Okay.” Adams says quickly. “Okay, just don’t hurt him. Please.” He calls Blue over to him softly as girl in front of him looks them over quickly, eyes lingering on Blue.

 

“Why is your hair long?” she asks abruptly. One of Adams’s hands goes to his hair self-consciously. He hasn’t had time to cut it. “Your hair is always short.”

 

Adams starts and says, “What? What are you talking about?”

 

She sneers at him in contempt, never looking away from him. Her guard is up. “Like you don’t fucking know. You --”

 

A sound down the hallway causes the girl to jump and she scurries away from Adams into a door well, hiding in the shadows. Adams is left dead center in the hallway with Blue, holding the metaphorical bag (him? Is he the bag?) as another guard rounds the corner and zeroes in on him immediately. Rather, the guard zeroes in on Blue and raises his gun, holding a ridiculous stance which, in Adams opinion, would get him totally murdered in a firefight. The guard starts prowling towards him barking orders as Adams tries not to have a panic attack right then and there.

 

Then,  _ clang _ , the guard gets a face full of extinguisher and drops like a, well, like an unconscious person. The girl leans down, never turning her back to Adams, and loots the guard’s pockets. She comes away with a keycard and their wallet, which she tucks in her own pocket easy-as-you-please. She grabs the gun, too, but looks with uncertainty in Adams’ direction.

 

He knows that he’s not in any danger logically (or at least, not in any immediate danger), but his body isn’t listening to him, is trying to pull in air through his bloodless lips. What a perfect time, Adams thinks, for this to happen. The girl’s still staring him down, analyzing, and then she sighs, pulling something out of her pocket and shoving it into his hand. Blue snarls at her but she ignores it.

 

She grabs Adams’ shoulder and shoves him to the ground; the human contact helps, even though she’s a stranger, and Adams leans into it. She says, “Count the beads. Out loud.”

 

He does, feeling the smooth beads between his fingers. He counts them over and over; when he finally feels centered again, he looks back up at the girl by his side who is glancing nervously down the hall. She looks at him briefly before removing her hand. “We have to go.”

 

“Who are you?” His voice comes out rusty, injured.

 

“Subject 17-24-FK,” she answers immediately.

 

“No,” Adams says as he stands, his voice evening out. The weight of the rosary beads in his hand catches him off guard. “Are these yours?”

 

The girl looks at them before saying dismissively, “No. I filched ‘em off of a guard. Keep ‘em.”

 

Adams pockets them before turning back to her. “Your name though-”

 

She cuts him off. “Let’s go.” And they go.

  
  
  
  
  


Adams and Blue follow their mysterious hero deeper into the facility, keeping pace quietly as they move slowly forward. She seems to trust them enough to turn her back on them, at least, as she takes point when leading their little group. She had even passed him the fire extinguisher a while back, though she kept the gun.

 

“No offense,” she had said. “But I don’t trust you that much.”

 

Now she is prowling ahead without speaking, and even though they’re trying to get out of this facility alive, Adams feels the unbearable need to make small talk. Is he the only one feeling awkward here?

 

“So, uh, you…” he begins smoothly, because he is a master wordsmith. “Are… here?”

 

She halts mid-step and turns to look back at him, gun held level. “What?”

 

Adams can fix this. “You’re just… it’s, um… what do you do?” Nailed it.

 

She’s staring at him openly now. Very, very openly. She asks incredulously, “Are you having a mental breakdown?”

 

“No! I’m just… nervous. I talk when I’m nervous.”

 

“I noticed,” she says, voice dry as a desert. She glances around the corner to her left before moving into the hallway branch to her right, instead.

 

“I, uh. I like your hair.” People like being complimented on their hair, right?

 

“The scientists shaved it before they put me under the knife,” she says flatly.

 

Well, fuck. Throw that comment right in the garbage along with any growing trust she may have had! Good work, Adams, you’ve done it again.

 

“Your tattoo is nice?” he ventures. There’s a 17 inked into the side of her neck.

 

“Scientists again. It’s a brand.”

 

Two strikes. Fucking wonderful.

 

“I’m sorry. It’s just that you remind me of a friend I had. Before.”

 

“Hmm.”

 

“Look,” Adams tries again. “I know that you don’t trust me-” she snorts. “-and that I’m making an ass of myself trying to come up with conversation starters, but can I at least get your name?”

 

She’s quiet for a few moments before she says, “Riley. I’m Riley.”

 

Adam lets out a sigh of relief and Blue gives him a look like  _ was that so hard? _

 

Riley stops at a locked door and digs out the keycard she took from the second guard to get a metal canister to the face. She swiped the card at the lock and it chimes softly, the light changing from red to green. She listens at the door before pushing it open, scanning the room; all clear, she ushers them inside, locking the door behind them again.

 

She turns to Adams, a smile on her face, and reaches out to shake his hand. “Nice to meet you Adams. Blue. Now, what the  _ fuck _ are you doing here?”

**Author's Note:**

> will i ever finish this??? i would like to! guess i need to replay Whiteout.
> 
> please let me know if are interested in me continuing this, otherwise it will rot in my google drive fanfic graveyard


End file.
